


Of handguns and eavesdropping

by n0tvegan



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: BAMF Lance (Voltron), Bisexual Lance (Voltron), Eventual Smut, Falling In Love, Female Pronouns for Pidge | Katie Holt, Gay Keith (Voltron), Hunk and Lance are bros, Keith (Voltron) is Bad at Feelings, Lance (Voltron) is a Mess, Memory Loss, Multi, pidge is a bro
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-01-17
Updated: 2019-02-12
Packaged: 2019-03-06 04:20:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,989
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13403337
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/n0tvegan/pseuds/n0tvegan
Summary: “Why do you keep your greatness a secret?”Lance turned to Pidge. His eyes were slits and his mouth was pressed into a thin line. Which quickly changed to smirk as he said.“I never do Pidgey! As long as you can handle it, you get the full extent of my greatness everyday.-”





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> finally writing again, it feels great!
> 
> enjoy

Pidge did not want to sleep. 

Well, she wanted too but, she could not. She had too much work to do. Her brother’s new system of finding Galra, her food substitute, and that new self-cloaking device Lance wanted for some reason all needed to be perfected before sleep could take her away from them. But as her head drooped onto the desk she decided, she could go for a pick me up. 

As her tiny feet patterned down the halls toward the training room, (they store surprisingly good power bars there) and then on to the kitchen, (for the coffee substitute that Hunk perfected the other day) she noticed she was not alone. 

In the hallway? Yes, she was alone. In her pursuit of knowledge, her pursuit to learn all the secrets of this ever expanding universe? Also, yes. But there was someone else in the training room. Somebody that was faster than Pidges tired eyes could process.

Probably Keith. She thought, almost sure she was right. She grabbed her phone like device and turned on the recorder. She liked to analyze her friends fighting styles, for science… also, to subtly help them with their form.

Pidge had always been a curious girl and she always wanted to prove her suspicions to definitive fact. So she waited until her eyes adjusted and she waited until the blurry figure stopped its sparitic motions. 

A loud bang and, all the sudden, it was like all the movement in the universe stopped. Pidge had never experienced such precision. It was like for a single moment the entire universe was aligned. What brought her back to reality was when five training bots simultaneously fell with five of the same bullet holes in their heads.  
‘Good job, Lance!’ The robotic voice shouted. 

Thats new, the bot normally does not complement, I wonder what Lance did. Pidge thought with no regard to the name the bot spit out.  
The girl froze when the bot spoke again.

‘Medium combat training level 26 cleared. Do you wish to go on?’ The bot spit monotonically.

She looked up at Lance to see him holding two handguns. She blanched at the sight. 

“He shouldn't be able to change the weapon that drastically.” She thought.

“Nah hun let's go…” Lance paused to think “... level, umm twenty-seven close combat. Yeah. Set that up for me please babe.”  
‘Of course Lance’ 

So Pidge watched the boy start to dance again and realized that she had never been so wrong about one person in her life. Lance was the most amazing fighter Pidge had ever seen. Lance was the most amazing fighter she had ever seen. Over Keith, over Shiro, over even Allura. 

He looked panicked as more and more drones started closing in on him and Pidge actually thought for a split second that she would have to go in there and help him. Though, the thoughts vanished when he slammed his hands together to make something completely new. Pidge almost shit herself when she saw it. His actions were not just terrifying, they were also beautiful. He looked like a dancer performing along to a triumphant symphony with his new weapon. 

She captured about one minute more before she decided she was ready for sleep to take her. She walked back to her rooms, still shocked by her team mate’s skills.

~~

When she woke the next morning, she was still pondering how Lance; funny, goofy, clumsy, ladies man Lance was on a higher level than Allura on the battle simulator. He was training at 2:00 in the morning. He was training on his own. None of this added up. And yet… It had too somehow. So Pidge resolved to figure out the mystery of Lance. First though, she would have to enlist some help. She sprung out of her bed and made her way to the kitchen. She knew who she would find there.

She was on her way to the kitchen and was about to make the only alliance that could have possibly saved her when, the speakers started spilling Allura’s voice. She was calling them to the rec room and Pidge was almost scared when she heard the mischief in Allura’s voice. 

“Yes, a royal battle is your training for today everyone.” said Coran, clearly excited. 

“Do you, by any chance mean a battle royale?” Shiro politely asked. “Those are two different things.” 

“Oh, yes, I do think I mean what you said. A- umm- battle roy-allie.” Coran struggled

“Close enough.” Shiro smiled at his friend. 

None of paladins including Pidge had realized that Allura had not been in the room. They did notice, on the other hand, when she whisked into the room carrying a tray full of pouches. 

“You will of course have to show your full potential. So, this is an Altean drink that numbs one's sense of restraint and lets the raw fury of their fighting power take hold, but only under a certain light. You will feel nothing directly after consumption,” Allura handed the tray to Coran and he started passing the drinks out. 

Allura clasped her hands together in front of her chest and drew and excited breath. “Is it not exhilarating? Anyway, I am off to prepare the training room. Please drink your drinks and make haste. Oh i'm so excited! I have to go prepare!” 

To Pidges surprise as soon as Lance got the drink he downed it. As everyone else did. Pidge stuck her pouch in her sweater pocket and watched Lance very carefully. He subtly excused himself to the restroom. When he did so he earned a “Don't be late Lance,” and another “Don't keep us waiting.” 

Pidge also noticed how when she excused herself, she got no remarks, no snide comments, just a cheerful “see you there!” from Hunk. 

Pidge was surprised to hear retching when she approached the bathroom. Why is his greatness a secret? A question that had plagued her since she had first seen him in the training room last night. She was confused and a little scared for her friend because she had never seen him so focused in her life and she pondered his motives on keeping his skills a secret. Why would he come out per say and get the glory of being the best overall fighter on the ship. Is he training for something? It attack a paladin? No that's ridiculous. Until it's not. Pidge needed answers. She needed them and the only way to start getting them is one question. The question it all goes back too. Where everything started. 

Lance was cleaning the corners of his mouth when Pidge actually saw him again. He looked a little surprised to see her but recovered quickly. He was good at recovering quickly. Pidge noted that and took a breath before asking the most important question that she’s ever asked in space. 

“Why do you keep your greatness a secret?” 

Lance turned to Pidge. His eyes were slits and his mouth was pressed into a thin line. Which quickly changed to smirk as he said.  
“I never do Pidgey! As long as you can handle it, you get the full extent of my greatness everyday.-” 

While Lance babled about being the best at everything, Pidge grabbed her almost-phone device and pulled up the video that she took yesterday night. She then soundlessly turned the video to his face.

“Explain this Lance Mcclain. This is the most valuable secret that the universe has ever seen and you’ve been keeping it from the only people that can use it for good.”

“Pidgey, it's not a secret if you tell people.” Lance said simply.

“None of this makes sense Lance, do we even know you at all? It fits your character description to take all the credit and proclaim yourself as the best fighter on the ship. So, why do you have this amazing talent and not share it with the world Lance? The universe? With your family.” Pidge was more confused than she had ever been.

“I'm Going to protect you all however I can and you don't need front lines fighters. You need a lovable goofball who can take the brunt of your anger and frustration. You all need somebody like the person i'm am trying to be. You all need me like I am.” Lance took a breath and continued on. “ If the time ever came where you would need me to fight for any of you I would gladly fight my hardest and if needed give my life before any harm came to any of you.”

Pidge was silent. She was stunned. Then a thought came to her head that terrified her. 

“I don't know you at all. Is-is your name even Lance? Are you-”

Lance cut Pidge off with a chuckle. “Yes my name is Lance. How do you think a person with a personality like this could be friends with a man like Hunk. He is a nice guy but come on Pidgey, he isn't magical. My personality now is annoying. Like really annoying.” 

“Back at the garrison, I was different.” Lance looked distant. “Of course I was still a star crossed kid but I was different. Calmer. Happier.” Lance signed. “You should get back, don't want them thinking i'm rubbing off on you now don't you?” 

So Pidge just left. She had so many more questions but first she had to talk to Hunk. She had to find out what real Lance was like. She wanted to find out what real Lance was like. 

When she started walking faster down the corridor she had remembered the pouch in her sweater pocket. Without thinking, she grabbed the small pouch and quickly downed the entire packet. She felt surprisingly better. None of her pesky thoughts plagued her anymore than normal. For the first time ever her mind was clear. She jogged the rest of the way to the training room. 

She wasn't reprimanded for being late. She was just asked where Lance was. She responded with a lie then took her place on the bench.

It was five minutes before Lance arrived and he appeared out of breath. 

“I am so so sorry for holding up you guys! I got distracted.” Lance panted, out of breath. 

Nobody even cared enough about him to respond Pidge noticed, they just went on with their day ignoring the huge inconvenience from just seconds ago. 

~~

For Lance, the day was less than enjoyable. Or at least from Pidges vantage point. She watched him get beat and tormented left and right. He lost every single match including target practice. Pidge knew he could beat them if he was even half trying but Lance had not drank the drink so he had total control. If he had he could have destroyed all of them it wouldn't just embarrassing for the rest of the paladins it would be dangerous. They all could get seriously hurt. 

After an especially embarrassing match between Shiro and Lance, Allura announced that the day’s training had concluded. 

Pidge rushed over to Lance as fast as she could and noticed he had a bloody nose. Pidge was going to give him a towel to clean himself up but he beat her to it, removing his sweaty shirt and holding to his nose. Pidge was appuled.

“Ew put those away. You’re going to blow your cover.” She gestured to his well defined midsection. 

“Oh shush Pidgey you’re just jealous.” Lance stuck out his tongue playfully at her and attempted to dodge the towel she threwat him.

“Not annoying Lance is mean to me. This is abusive.” Pidge wines. 

“Hey, how do you know i'm not annoying Lance? What if you secretly have a soft spot for my annoy-” Lance was cut off to a very sharp stinging in his neck. Followed by a steady pain that flowed throughout his body. 

Pidge was confused at why Lance was uncomfortable until she experienced a slight prick in her neck and flinched as the relief of her thoughts back. That wellness was dashed as she also received a bloody toothed Lance in front of her. Everyone else was talking in small groups or pairs and Lances sudden discomfort went completely unnoticed by them.

“Coran! What was the purpose of the shot we just received?” Pidge asked quickly. 

“It was to simply counteract the solution you drank earlier. It should have no negative effect on your health.” 

Lance after standing for more time than should be possible in the condition Pidge thought he was in and, finally succame to the burning pain that radiated through his whole body and fell to his knees. He coughed into his hand and saw red. His mouth tasted metallic. He realized in that moment his cover was blown.

The good news is that his scene finally got some well needed attention. Coran started an evaluation scan and the others were there to crowd around him. When Lance got enough blood out through his wind pipe, surprising everyone including Pidge, he lifted his head and looked at the four-eyed girl. 

He gave her a red smile and then said. “They still need me Pidgey, you gotta save me. You should tell them about me, they deserve to know the most valuable secret in the universe.” Lance barked a short stuttered laugh and promptly succumbed to the immense pain for real this time. 

In the hustle and bustle of trying to get Lance into a pod Pidge almost didn't notice how Keith made sure he was the person to take lance to the infirmary with Coran. But she did. And in all the mess of her brother like friend facing what looked like death, she smiled. She smiled because she knew somebody loved him like he deserved. Finally.


	2. The Reaction

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> season six got me shook

“I just don't understand why he had such a violent reaction.” Coran looked confused and for good reason. Namely, Pidge had not told them Lance’s secret. 

They had all gathered in the common room and Coran was briefing them on the condition of their friend. Pidge was honestly not planning telling the the others right then. Shiro surprised them all by asking the question that would lead to the much needed answers about Lance and the question of why this all happened to him.

“Hunk, what was Lance like back at the garrison? You do know him the best of all of us, after all.” Shiro asked respectfully in his usual manner. The question made Pidge’s mind spike with anxiety. She was not only scared because of Lance but also scared because Shiro had asked the question like Lance had died. Her train of thought was canceled when Hunk responded.

“He was absolutely nothing like he is now. He was clamer-”

Lances own words flashed through Pidge’s mind.

'Back at the garrison, I was different.'... 'Of course I was still a star crossed kid but I was different. Calmer. Happier.' 

“- and only when he first met someone new would he put on the cocky persona. It wasn't EVERY time he met somebody new either, it was only when he decided they were one of his peers.” Hunk took a bated breath. “When he started doing it when we first met Keith but he stopped after Keith left. 

“But when he saw Keith trying to save shiro right out from under him Lance reverted right back.” Hunk looked up at the paladins again and there was a overly sad look in his eyes.

“I thought he would snap out of it like he normally does, but he never did. It has been a year and he acts the same. We have grown apart as friends as a result.” 

“I did not know you two were so close.” Allura said. 

“It's a funny story how we became so close really.” Hunk smiled at the thought. “We actually dated for a few weeks.” 

Everyone’s jaws dropped to the floor. 

“What?!?”

“When?” 

“Lance is gay?!?” 

“Who asked who out?”

“What base did you two get to?” Pidge asked momentarily forgetting her anxiety. 

“PIDGE!” Shiro squaked.

“What? I’m just curious.” Pidge smiled innocently and it concealed her anxiety well.

Hunk rolled his eyes and continued on. “Yeah, we dated for a few weeks and I was kinda uncomfortable but I thought it would pass. One time though, we were at this super good italian place and we are eating and out of nowhere he gets out of the booth and kneels next to my side of the booth. He grabs my hand and looks into my eyes and I think ‘holy shit this guy is about to propose’ 

Hunk looked around at the paladins and flapped his arms to try and demonstrate his stress. “And it's like he is reading my mind when he says: ‘Look hunk you are a great guy but I refuse to live a lie. So, I would like to formally ask you to be my bestest bro.’”

“That’s moving and all but, you never answered my question.” Pidge asked like she was bored (She was in fact not). 

Hunk‘s cheeks turned a light shade of pink. “T- third on one particularly steamy night. Although, most of the intimacy in our relationship was cuddling.” 

Pidge snickered while others just gazed in half-wonder and half-unease. 

They sat in a comfortable silence for a time. You could close your eyes and it was almost like Lance was ever gone. Like he was never hurt. The sobering silence was also a reminder that there was nobody to fill it and that's what finally pushed Pidge over the edge. 

“Lance didn't have a reaction to the counteracting shot. Lance never drank the drink in the first place.” The comfortable silence turned into an uncomfortable silence very quickly. 

“But I saw hi-” Shiro started. 

“I met him in the bathroom and saw him… purge himself?” Pidge finished the sentence with a question not knowing how to phrase the awkward statement. 

“Oh! Quiznak! I understand!” Coran yelped and announced that he needed to go assess Lance again and left the room in a hurry. The uncomfortable silence folded around them again. This time Keith broke it. 

“But, why? Why would Lance put himself at risk like that.? When we were forced to go all out like that. I hate to say this but, Lance is not as strong a fighter as everyone else.”

Pidge just couldn't help it. She snorted a laugh. 

“What?” Keith defended. “He really is not that good.” 

“The reason this whole debacle started in the first place is that I caught him in the middle of the night yesterday, training.” Pidge said like it wasnt news to the rest of them.

“I don’t believe you.” Keith said simply. 

So Pidge showed them all the video. 

Lance danced around the bots and was always on step and in front. Lance disabled the bots with just his blaster and his hands. After some warm up exercise he started working on some close combat skills. His blaster had transformed into two handguns as he mercilessly destroyed bot after bot. The numbers of the bots in piled on the floor started 

to grow, but so did the number of bots standing on the floor. He looked like he was panicking when he slammed his hands together but his handguns become a bayonet. He jacked and shot bot after bot with the same if not more grace as earlier.

As the bots get thicker in numbers the gun became less and less useful. The gun slowly starts growing in length and shortening in width until it was a spear that was as tall as Lance himself. The end was two feet long and cerated. It glowed blue against his face and you could see the faintest of smiles on Lance’s lips. 

He then starts cutting down the robots. Not one by one like the gun, but one swing would leave five bots in a pile of scrap parts. He used the pole to propel himself over a bot just to stab it in the mechanical back. He ripped through bot after bot without remorse, and soon the room was clear. The video cut to black.

“You all heard Lance before he passed out. He gave me permission to share with you the universe's most valuable secret. You all probably thought it was a joke, and, that’s understandable. You didn't really know Lance” Pidge calmly placed her device on the table and turned to leave. As if it exhausted her to be here. It did. 

She was in the door frame when she turned back to say one final thing. “And I am ashamed to say that neither did I.” 

Pidge stopped off in the direction of her lab tears collecting in her red-rimmed eyes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> next chapter out soon! i love ya'll oml follow me on twitter: mcoaokne i just started and it would be great if i could gain a bit of a following. i shitpost about fandom shit.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi how are you. it been a while

Pidge was woken up by a ginger man standing over her and shaking her shoulder. 

“Number five.” 

No response. 

“Number five.” 

Still nothing.

“Pidge!” 

“What” the girl finally looked up at the red headed man, sleep still stuck under her eyes. 

“Do you want to talk about Lance? I have new intel.”

“Yeah Coran, talk to me.” 

They walk to the infirmary they walk in silence. Pidge looks out the windows as they walk the halls deep in thought. What if Lance was permanently injured? What if Lance is gone…? 

‘You should have been there.’ She thought to herself. “You should have been there, thought of something, done something, anything!’ She was absolutely disgusted with herself.

‘You failed him. You failed the team. He’s gone because of you. He’s dead and it's all your fault!’

“Number five?” Coran asked hesitantly to snap Pidge out of her haze. We’re here. 

Pidge let out a breath the she did not know she was holding as she looked up at Lance suspended in a pod above her, his chest slowly heaving up and down. 

“So, what’s the damage Coran?” Pidge crossed her arms and turned away from Coran slightly when she asked. She was hiding a tinge of pink on her cheeks. 

“Well, he is going to make a full recovery.”

Her mood was completely changed. “Really? Oh my god! How long will it take?” 

“I don’t know.” 

Pidge’s heart sunk. “What? Why?”

“He will come out of the pod physically sound, yes. There is also a 98% chance that Lance will not even remember his own name.”

“... How-” 

“The counteractant is used to go into the brain and burn through the virus to cut off the restraint but without that the virus the counteractant is just shielding his memories from being processed in his mind.” 

“So how much will he remember? Anything?” 

“I just can't say Pidge. The monitor says he has only retained about 15% of his memories. So he could literally remember anything. He will regain his memories again with time.”

Pidge just nodds. 

“He is scheduled to come out the pod in next two minutes so I thought it wise to have you here for damage control incase he remembers nothing but something that triggers his fight response. We do not want him to become hostile.” 

Coran looks at his watch. “We have 90 ticks”

“What am I supposed to do about Lance fighting? He could kill both of us!”

“We'll lock down the bay and find a way to sedate him, 60ticks”

“Coran that’s fucking crazy!”

“It's the only thing we can do for Lance right now. We have to help him anyway we can, 30 ticks”

“Ok, i'll lock down the med bay.”

“Get that shot on the table. It is the sedative, 15 ticks!”

Pidge grabbed the shot and ran to the pod.

“5 ticks!”

Coran set himself on front of the pod. 

“4 ticks!”

Pidge stabilized her feet behind him.

“3 ticks!”

She rolls the vial of sedative around in her palm.

“2!”

“Here goes nothing Coran!”

“1!”

The pod opens with a hiss.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ey yo wuss up im comin at chuu wit another chapter sorry it took so long and thats its short im just sorry


End file.
